Fermilab offers a public lecture series on a wide range of topics presented by experts in their respective fields.

Lectures cost $7 and are usually on Friday evenings beginning at 8 p.m. in Ramsey Auditorium. Lectures are general admission seating, and frequently sell out.  Click here for details and tickets.

The Physics of Superheroes Dr. James Kakalios, University of Minnesota

In THE PHYSICS OF SUPERHEROES, inspired by his Freshman Seminar class at the University of Minnesota entitled: "Everything I Know About Science I Learned from Reading Comic Books," Physics Professor James Kakalios addresses topics from Isaac Newton to the transistor, but there's not an inclined plane or pulley in sight. Rather, ALL the examples come from superhero comic books, and as much as possible, those cases where the superheroes get their physics right!

Brief Biography:

James Kakalios received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1985; he worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center; and then in 1988, having had enough of those California winters, joined the physics faculty at the University of Minnesota. He is the Taylor Distinguished Professor in the University of Minnesota's School of Physics and Astronomy. His popular science book THE PHYSICS OF SUPERHEROES was published in 2005, and has been translated into German, Spanish, Korean, Chinese and Italian. The SPECTACULAR SECOND EDITION was published in November 2009, and THE AMAZING STORY OF QUANTUM MECHANICS was published in October 2010. In 2007, in response to a request from the National Academy of Sciences, Kakalios served as the pro bono science consultant for the Warner Bros. superhero film Watchmen. In 2009 he filmed a short video on the Science of Watchmen, which has been viewed over 1.7 million times since being posted on youtube.com. This video won an Upper Midwest Regional Emmy award in the alternative Media: Arts/Entertainment category in 2009 and was nominated for a WEBBY award in 2010. He was also the science advisor for The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). His research interests include nanocrystalline and amorphous semiconductors, pattern formation in sandpiles and fluctuation phenomena in neurological systems. He has been reading comic books longer than he has been studying physics.